Tony Khan AEW media call notes: Jeff Hardy update, wellness policy, Forbidden Door II
During his Friday media call to promote Sunday’s AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door pay-per-view, Tony Khan provided an update on Jeff Hardy and discussed the company’s wellness policy.
Khan said that Hardy is in treatment, but couldn’t say much more other than that he has stayed in contact with Matt Hardy and that AEW will continue to support Jeff as he goes through the treatment process.
He was asked if AEW has a wellness policy and the differences between Hardy’s DWI arrest and Jon Moxley who entered rehab last year for alcohol abuse.
Khan said they do have a wellness policy, but didn’t go into details about it. He said it’s available to talent of any stature and he hopes people that need it come to them before there are incidents. He said there is testing in place and the expectation is that people come to work ready to do just that. He said doing any type of post-event alcohol testing wouldn’t make sense and that the majority of the roster are responsible with alcohol.
He came back to the question later and bristled at the notion the Hardy and Moxley situations are similar. He said that Moxley never put anyone in danger and that the two situations were “apples and oranges” and didn’t like to hear them compared.
Here’s some of the other notable news from the call, the full audio of which is available below:
- Based on the success of ticket sales and buzz, he is already thinking about Forbidden Door II.
- He went into long detail at the onset about the difficulties with injuries and availability with making Sunday’s show happen. He said CM Punk and FTR would have been together on the show had Punk not got hurt. They knew Okada would be available to them this week and that Jay White would be available two weeks before.
- He wished all four men in the IWGP Title match could have had more TV time leading up to Sunday, but he dealt with it as best he could.
- He decided to shelf Bryan Danielson for Forbidden Door and Blood & Guts as he didn’t want to risk Danielson being out longer with injury. He strongly put over Danielson’s replacement Sunday and thinks it will be a special moment.
- He said Will Ospreay vs. Orange Cassidy had been the plan for quite some time.
- More Buy-In matches for the PPV will be announced tonight on Rampage.
- He acknowledged the politics involved in not having Rey Fenix and Andrade on Sunday’s show, but put over their match on Rampage and a “wild ending” to tonight’s show.
- Sunday isn’t a precursor to more AEW PPVs. Khan acknowledged more PPVs would increase revenue, but there’s no imminent increase coming.
- He is open to AEW wrestlers carrying NJPW titles and vice versa.
- PPV buys are right around the same number they usually are 72 hours out, but the big movement is in the next 48 hours.